I am really, really glad that the NHL is back.
I can’t be the only one who misses Barry Melrose, though.
Hockey is now a young man’s game, there is no doubt about it, Mark Messier and Brett Hull’s retirements cement that.
The game is much more open, you can just jam a guy up on the boards without getting a whistle now. This game belongs to the new crop of rookies like Crosby, Parise, Ovechkin, etc. The goalie pads won’t do that much, I don’t see guys giving up more than a couple extra goals a year due to those. Martin Brodeur’s been wearing small pads all his career, and he’s not exactly a sieve. The trapezoid rule makes sense, as does the icing rule. The only bone I have to pick is with treating the goalie as just another player when he’s out of the crease. To me, there’s just something taboo about laying a hit on a goalie, and I don’t see anyone doing it without drawing the ire of an enforcer. The shootout I used to be against, but I hate ties even more. If you can’t settle the game on your own, 5 on 5 in upwards of 70 minutes on the ice, then you have to settle it somehow. They’re great 1 on 1 matchups, player vs goalie.
Click here for explanations of the new rules.